My Theater 8 Read online

  My Theater 8

  By

  Ashley Milano

  Copyright © 2012. Ashley Milano, Tony Milano

  All rights Reserved.

  First Edition, November 2012. Kindle Edition

  Table of Contents

  Introduction – Written by Tony Milano

  My Theater 8 – Written by Ashley Milano

  Final Thoughts – Written by Ashley Milano

  Introduction

  The following story was written by my 14 year old daughter Ashley. In it she shares the events leading up to and including the tragic event of July 20th 2012 on which a gunman entered our local Century 16 movie theater during a special midnight showing of the highly anticipated Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises”.

  The gunman entered theater 9 which was wall to wall with theater 8. He was armed with multiple weapons and gas canisters that filled the building with either pepper spray or tear gas. He opened fire at anyone he could see. The victims that lost their lives or received the most serious of physical injuries were in theater 9.

  However, many in theater 8 did receive injuries from bullets and debris, not to mention the mental trauma that would follow them for the rest of their lives.

  The movie theater was filled with people of all ages, from toddlers to senior citizens. It was a family event for many people and my heart bleeds for everyone that had the unfortunate luck of being there that night.

  My daughter Ashley and my 19 year old son Alex were in theater 8. Any profit from this Kindle book will go directly to them to use anyway they see fit.

  My Theater 8

  I remember buying the tickets “6 days” before the showing, all I wanted to do was hold them and even show them off a bit to my friends. But what could I say? I was going to see my favorite superhero's last movie, I couldn't help it.

  The night before the showing I couldn't sleep knowing it was so soon, my brother and I got around 5 hours of sleep in total. It was also my first midnight showing, Batman and a midnight showing! This day couldn't get any better.

  My mom and dad were a bit hard to convince since I've never been out after 10pm without them. They were going to see the movie with us, but had to change their minds last minute since my little brother was in the hospital having his appendix removed. Ouch!

  We spent the day at The Children's Hospital with my little brother who just had surgery and we watched movie trailers and I continuously asked when we should leave.

  My brother Alex kept calling the theater to check up on the line. We decided we were going to wait until 8PM to go to the theater. But, we were to eager to wait that long, so we said our goodbyes, grabbed our bags and checked out of the hospital visitor area right outside the doors. The nurse at the desk said “Are you guys checked out for the day or are you planing to come back?” I never thought about how ironic that was until now.

  We both impatiently waited in the elevator from the eighth floor to the first floor, slightly bragging about our tickets to one of the nurses. When the elevator opened I started to run to the door, I was so eager to get the night started. My brother was joking with me and started to skip and click his heels together as he jumped up in the air. Just like a little kid would.

  When we first got into the building I saw this little girl whom I thought to be around five or six with beautiful long dirty blonde hair, so of course I complimented her about it. She smiled shyly and ran back to her line..for theater 9. Not thinking anything of it, I smiled and handed my ticket to the employee checking the tickets. "Enjoy the movie!" he said.

  Since the showing was at 12am you might think we'd be tired. but I was too excited to even notice. We got there around 8 o'clock cause hey, what's a movie without good seats? I'm glad we did get there early, the lines were HUGE! I remember seeing the tired look in my brothers eyes, though I couldn't blame him. But once the guy let us in and we noticed the smell of the popcorn and we both got pumped up again.

  Not a minute after getting in line my brother being the over excited social junky that he is, started to converse with a really awesome couple in front of us. They seemed to be in their 20's and after chatting with them we learned their names were Noemi and Josh. At that moment I looked around, we were 5th and 6th in line.”Yes!!” good seats here we come!'

  As people kept piling up in our line and my brother and the couple continued their conversation on whether it was a good idea to put Anne Hathaway as cat woman in this movie I noticed these two women sitting beside us, after loads of shy glances in our direction I was going to turn around and start a conversation when I smelt what I thought was burnt popcorn and I looked towards the kitchen and saw a decent amount of smoke fill the air, after a few sly comments were whispered under peoples breathes about the movie staff I noticed people getting up from their spots on the floor. They let us in the theater about 2 hours early!

  We followed the couple in, but then went our separate ways, they liked the middle seats. We liked the top ones. "See ya after the movie!" My brother shouted.

  I was about to ask my brother if we could sit on the 2 seaters on the right side of the theater, but once I turned to ask him he was already sitting in the middle of the 3rd row down, staring at me displeased as if he knew I was going to ask, so I sat one seat away from him in the same aisle. He likes to hit me and ask if I saw what just happened...“Of course I did. I'm watching the same thing you are!”

  After people kept coming in at their own pace a few holding popcorn and a drink, two people came and sat below us. It was a girl around Alex's age, she was wearing a batman shirt and she was with what looked to be her dad. Later on they told us their names; Devin and Larry. 'Oh no, here we go..'my brother started chatting them up. More like flirting with Devin. Well we had two hours to burn, so why not converse some more.

  About an hour and a half into the waiting we also started conversing with the people above us. We talked to around 10 people in total, New record! A man sitting right below me and I played Tick-Tack-Toe on our hands with some spare Eyeliner that was in my purse, and my brother was quizzing everyone in the row below us about the batman comics.

  I looked around the theater, it had all these people talking amongst each other and loads of children laughing and running around hugging someone dressed as Batman, heck, even the one dressed as Bane was getting hugs from them. I couldn't help but smile. Today was awesome!

  Once the room darkened everyone started finding their seats and clapping and whistling and shouting and screaming you can just tell everyone was pumped! I looked around once again and noticed two really tall guys sitting the seats I wanted. Aw man! I really wanted to sit there! Oh well, couldn't be helped!

  We watched the commercials as everyone clapped and laughed and yelled the whole way through, until the “Man of steel” movie preview that's when it fell silent around us, suddenly a bored sounding voice shouts beside me, "We came to see Batman." I couldn't help but slam my face in to my hand. “Alex you moron.” I laughed as the movie started so I tried to stop..Failing. But I tried.

  Everyone watched intently, staring at the screen in awe, some looked like they were about to Jump out of their seats even! Cat woman had just given the guy fingerprints when a shooting scene came on with the SWAT and some of Bane's guys when we heard VERY realistic sounding shots and a few small screams, my brother was about to clap thinking it was extra props for the premiere but I knew better, they sounded..Off, somehow.

  I grabbed my brothers arm and looked down only to see a screen of smoke or fog cover the lower half of the theater as people from the right side were starting to flee holding parts of themselves and others.

  My brother lowered his curiosity and reassured me it was only an idiot with fireworks, that was until a man in a white shirt came running
in looking around for a second then shouting "Hey guys, don't go though the front exit! There's a guy shooting in the lobby!!" Then he left, I remember my brother whisper under his breath "You've got to be kidding me."

  Then there was more shooting and the emergency alarm went off as the look of realization and shock came to my brother's face. "There has been an emergency in the building, please exit the building Immediately, This is not a drill, I repeat. this is not a drill." said a voice over the intercom in the theater.

  Alex stood up as I told the person in front of us to leave cause they didn't move at all saying they wanted to finish the movie. My brother and I watched as everyone tried to leave through the back exit and through the main door.

  He grabbed my bag and put it over my shoulder and he did the same, then he pulled my arm towards the crowd but I pulled back and pointed towards the one nearest us that everyone seemed hesitant to use, the emergency exit in the back of the theater that leads to the lobby. He stared at the door for a second then nodded and followed me through it. A few people were running ahead of me as I opened the door.

  I walked cautiously after walking out the door and glanced at the other exit next to ours there was a women there with red on her shirt, It didn't register that it was blood at the time. She kept screaming "Turn on the lights, Turn on the lights!" I kept going afraid to look back. That was the exit to theater 9, the one next door..the one with the little girl..the one with what sounded like gun shots.

  I noticed the fogginess of the lobby, but I didn't care for that. I kept running as I could feel the gas getting to me, my throat and eyes started to have a stinging, burning type of sensation. The first thing that had crossed my mind was pepper spray, I was sure of it.

  I looked back to see my brother covering his mouth and noise with his shirt, looking past the ramp out to the lobby with a stoic expression plastered on his face, watching as people huddled together near the entrance crying and screaming.

  There was one guy in front of me, in front of me by inches at the most when his leg started bleeding, Alex asked what happened to him, he said he got hit by a firework. It made me calm down a bit, though there was to much blood for it to be a firework. I didn't think about that at the time. I can't say if he got hit while we were running or if the wound just caught up with his adrenaline but he didn't start bleeding till after we were about halfway down the staircase.

  Alex ran ahead of him dragging me along. We stopped at the lobby front reassuring everyone that looked to be having a mental break down that it was just an idiot with fireworks when a cop came in and said "Everyone get out now, fast!"

  I looked around to try and find everyone we talked to before hand when I noticed the guy that was shot from before was stopped on the bottom of the staircase panting heavily, I tried to go back to help him outside, but Alex grabbed my shirt and pulled me out of the building.

  It was pure chaos at its finest, watching the people come out was a thousand times worse then getting shot at.

  But besides this one evil, there was so much good. People were taking off their belts and shirts wrapping people up and trying to stop the blood, one woman you could just tell she had a fear of blood, as she was looking away from the chaos, but she held her hand to another woman's wound anyway.

  A girl in her teens was covered in blood sitting on the curb just staring in to thin air, wide-eyed as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. She wouldn't even reply when multiple people would ask her if she was hurt, a man just watched her, waiting. Then picked her up and carried her to a ambulance since she wouldn't talk.

  People were coming out caked in blood, some were limping, people were collapsing. But nothing. I REPEAT. NOTHING. Was worse then seeing that cop come out with the little girl I talked to moments before getting in line. I didn't see her face. but I would know that hair anywhere. He said she wasn't breathing and rushed her to some other cops who then took her. Some woman was crying on the phone saying she saw holes in her back. It broke me. I would have fallen to the ground if it wasn't for my brother holding my waist.

  We stuck like glue to Devin and Larry from theater 8 when we found them again, as we watched and mourned over those being taken from the crowd in blankets more and more cops and SWAT went to the building, at the very least a hundred altogether.

  Soon they had brought out dogs and a helicopter and surrounded the whole place. Almost 3 hospitals sent out all their ambulances and there still wasn't enough. Cops took it upon themselves to take the wounded in their cars.

  They made the ones from theater 8 and theater 9 that weren't badly harmed go to the left side of the building as some of us wandered slightly towards the back to speak to the cops. We were unaware the shooter was at the back of the building watching us the whole time.

  One of the cops speakers went off saying there was 7 bodies in theater 9 and they needed help ASAP! You could hear the crying of what sounded to be a young women in the background. I had to close my eyes to stop the tears from flowing once again. Somehow during the chaos we found almost everyone we talked to in the theater..Almost.

  My brother, Devin, Larry and I all gave our statements to the cops and they let us go saying that we could not take our cars if they had caution tape on them, which would be most of them including ours and theirs, so we walked towards the bus stop across the street as I took in the scenery.

  There was loads of police cars and ambulances that took over the street, not a normal car was in sight. The police had what I would guess would be over 6 blocks in every direction blocked off. This man had made an impact and all I could think about was if that little girl really was hurt and if Noemi and Josh made it out safely.

  Final Thoughts

  About two months after it happened I was having trouble breathing, most mornings I would wake up not being able to breathe and thought it might have been due to the gas I inhaled, I was diagnosed with Panic attacks but they want do to further tests. The same evening we went to a memorial at the Kaiser Medical Center near the theater and found out that Noemi and Josh got out without any physical injuries, luckily they made it to their car and left before they saw the worst of it.

  Alex and I were basically inseparable for the first few weeks, we barely went anywhere without each other. We must be pretty lucky to have one another to look towards when we're feeling sad or alone, we always had someone who would understand when we thought others didn't.

  Sometimes I feel guilty that I survived and so many didn't. I didn't go a day without crying for the first few weeks, I know that whether it was a good way to go or not, and that no matter ones religion, it was their time to move on to better things.

  I mean, people died. And I got out with a bruise near my shoulder. I'm not even sure when it happened, I didn't feel it. Heck, I didn't even notice it till my dad pointed it out a day or two later. It was in the shape of a Bullet. Small, Round. I figure a piece of debris hit me back in the theater.

  I spend most of the time keeping myself busy, just going and doing anything that came up, from going to the gas station to staying at friends houses' though they kept telling me that I wasn't acting myself I kind of figured, but they understood, doing anything and everything in they're power to cheer me up.

  We still keep in contact with Noemi, Josh and Devin. We see and meet others from the theater often too, whether it being by gatherings or just running into each other.

  The following Monday July 23rd; Alex called Harkins Theatres and spoke with the manager, he honored our movie tickets and let Noemi, Josh, Alex and I finish watching the movie for free, the rest of my family came with us to watch the movie but they paid for their tickets. We told the other survivors that came in contact with us that Harkins would honor their tickets too when they're ready to finish the movie, I'm not sure whether Devin and her father Larry have seen it yet.

  We often meet-up with a group of survivors from the theater and the Columbine High school shooting that took place here in Colorado, it's really helpful just
to talk with people who know what your going through, even when we aren't talking about the tragedies. They are truly amazing people, I just wished we met on better circumstances.

  We visited the memorial across the street from the movie theater often, just to gather thoughts or when we're feeling upset. We've dropped flowers, lit candles, and just went cause we felt we needed too, for me it has helped a lot.

  On the second month anniversary (September 20th, 2012) The city took down the memorial and they plan to put everything in the Aurora History Museum, currently there is a sign where the site use to be saying, "Thank you for your love and support for the victims and families." They also have said they are planning on reopening the theater by early 2013.

  Alex has been in contact with the city and they wanted him and I on the memorial committee for making a permanent one, we've accepted the offer and keep in touch.

  Though many of the victims and witnesses would give anything to forget, and though it brings many tears. I feel like if I forget, in a way it will disgrace those who didn't make it out that night. And it has shown me that life really is precious and not to take a moment for granted. My names Ashley Milano and I'm a survivor.

 

 

  Milano, Ashley, My Theater 8

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